


Expecto Patronum

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pre-Canon, Snily, and fairly innocent, but y'all might like it, tbh guys I don't ship snily anymore, they're young, this is old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Snape has promised Lily that he’ll teach her the Patronus charm, but it’s proving to be much harder than she’d expected.





	Expecto Patronum

"Raise your wand just a little higher--there--and say it just a little louder--and remember, the most important thing is to focus on your happy memory, and just...relax."

Lily Evans closed her eyes to concentrate and tried to swallow her frustration. She had been trying for nearly two hours to produce a Patronus, but the most exciting thing she had seen was a few puffs of insubstantial smoke drifting from the tip of her wand. She allowed herself a suppressed sigh of anger. It was so...so...

"Lily," Severus Snape interrupted himself impatiently. "Lily, are you listening?"

"Mm? Oh--yeah, I'm listening. I just--" Lily broke off awkwardly and covered up by pushing a flyaway strand of hair out of her vivid, moss colored eyes. She tried again.

"I just feel like I'm getting nowhere, y'know? Two hours now, Sev...two hours..."

Severus immediately changed tack, and all signs of annoyance vanished from his thin face.

"Hey," he murmured, placing a pale hand on Lily's shoulder. "Hey. You did good! I bet most fourth years can't even pronounce Expecto Patronum, much less actually manage to make the beginnings of one." Severus blinked, half surprised at how encouraging and...and teacher-like he sounded. "Just a few more tries, and then we should go down to the Great Hall. You look exhausted."

It was true. Lily felt as though she had just run a mile--a spell as advanced as the Patronus Charm could take a lot out of you. And in the dim, dusty light of the dark stairwell winding up to the astronomy tower, she suspected she looked even worse. Lily felt suddenly self conscious, almost shy...she shook her head. It was just Sev. Just her friend.

"Alright, three more tries. At MOST," Lily said, trying to pump enthusiasm into her voice. "Three more."

She thought of the moment she had first received her Hogwarts letter. She tried to recall its weight in her hands, the initial puzzlement that came with it. The shock, the disbelief, and finally the elation. The scent of the parchment.

"Expecto Patronum!"

A gleaming silver strand shot out of Lily's wand, and for a second she really thought she'd done it. But then Petunia's scowling face at the sight of the colorful Hogwarts crest loomed over her, and she faltered, dropping the wand by a fraction of an inch. The silvery stream stopped immediately.

Severus frowned at her, but Lily could tell he was just thinking. A strange wind---probably magical, Lily thought-- whispered through the passageway and whipped Sev's dark hair into his darker eyes. He shook it away.

"I don't think your memory's strong enough," he said simply.

No duh, thought Lily. But out loud she said, "Okay. I'll try something different."

Lily thought hard and decided on the time that her parents had let her see the Quidditch World Cup with her friend Emmeline Vance: the colors, the bizarre tents, the freedom of being up late under the stars and the infectious stamping and shouting of the crowd. An impulsive thought popped into her head, the random kind that you get at night when you're trying to fall asleep: If I ever have a kid, I want them to see that.

"Ready?" asked Sev. She nodded.

"Expecto Patronum!!"

This time, the memory had nothing to hinder it, but it didn't seem quite strong enough. The result was a steady if rather weak ribbon of what looked like fog.  
Aggravated, Lily threw her wand to the ground.

"Lily!" Severus yelped in protest.

"Severus," Lily grumbled right back.

"Lily, you're taking this way too seriously. This is a difficult spell for even the best Auror, and a fourth year--"

"You can do it! You can get it, so why can't I?" she yelled.

Sighing, Severus took a step closer.

"Lily," he said softly, as though hearing her own name might help her calm down. "Lily. Listen to me, okay?"

He said it in sort of a breathless way, like he'd been running. He took both of her hands in his, and didn't say anything more. He merely looked at her for a long, long moment. Lily felt herself relax, felt her clenched fists soften in his gentle grip. She gazed unblinkingly into his ink dark eyes and said, "Alright. One more time."

As she raised her wand and cleared her throat, a memory came to her unbidden.

It was summer, and she was sitting alone on the back porch. It had only been a short while since she'd received her Hogwarts letter, and she hadn't quite taken it in. Was the stuff she could do really magic?

She was staring into the dirt beneath her scuffed shoes but not really seeing it, lost in a swirl of memories that now made sense: doors opening and closing unexpectedly, the flames on the candles of her birthday cake refusing to go out.

"That's pretty cool."

She jumped. The small boy who had been there the day she got her letter--Severus, was it? Something like that--was standing over her.

"W-what is?"

"That." The boy stamped the toe of his boot decisively into the dirt in front of her. Lily gasped. The word "magic" had been traced out in an elaborate cursive, much more elaborate than anything she could come up with consciously.

"Oh. Um, I guess so." She looked up; Severus was smiling at her without realizing it. He seemed a little lost in the moment.

"You know what's even cooler, though?"

"No?"

He reached out a tentative hand, the nervous, barely there smile still clinging to him. "I'll show you."

She took the small, cold hand in hers. "Okay."

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Lily gasped as a misty doe barely small enough in the corridor galloped past her, past Severus, and out of sight.

"Sev!" she squealed in joy. "Sev, I DID IT!"

Severus was grinning uncharacteristically wide, still looking down the winding staircase after the doe. He looked slightly shaken somehow, like he'd just seen someone he recognized whom he'd forgotten about for several years. Lily, however, was too ecstatic to notice this. She leaned over and hugged him, then started down the steps.

"Come on!" she called to Sev.

On their way down to dinner, Lily realized something that probably would've been more obvious if she hadn't been so excited after Severus promised to teach her the Patronus Charm.

"Hey, Sev," she started.

"Mm?" He glanced at her sideways.

"What's your Patronus?"

Severus looked extremely uncomfortable.

"I'd rather not say," he mumbled evasively.

"Aw, c'mon, Sev. You can tell me. I won't laugh, promise." Maybe his Patronus was a duck or something. Who cared?

"It's...I'd really rather not..." he trailed off.

"PLEASE?" Lily wheedled, giving him her best puppy eyes. This look was guaranteed to melt any other guy in a matter of seconds. Not Severus, though.

"No." He was blushing quite violently now, and Lily decided to drop it. They walked in silence for a while.

Then Severus said, "Lily?"

"Yes?" she answered a little too eagerly.

"Did you know that your Patronus can sometimes reflect your interests?"

"No...I didn't know that," Lily said slowly. What was he trying to tell her? What was Sev interested in?

Sev turned and smiled at her.

"Lily! Where'd you go? You're staring off into space."

"Oh...sorry."

"Don't be."

And together they walked into the Great Hall.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2012…it’s a little…patchy…but it’s had some recent edits so it’s still decent. Here have some fluff. As an aside, I no longer ship Snily (but I sure as heck don’t ship Jily) for a number of reasons, but I don’t think there’s anything abusive or morally wrong with this particular fic.


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